Re: SMP kernel on single-cpu machine...?

David Woodhouse (dwmw2@cam.ac.uk)
Tue, 11 Nov 1997 19:21:55 +0000

I've been looking at the MP spec. It seems that if the machine doesn't provide
the OS with an MPC block, then the OS is supposed to assume the default
configuration of two processors and one IO APIC. This is just a guess, but I
suppose the Tyan boards don't bother to generate an MP block when they've only
got one processor in.

We may be able to get round this by detecting the error when we try to init
the second CPU. There are frightening warning messages about using APIC error
returns though. Alan - could you comment on this, please?

I suppose the ideal solution is to lobby Tyan for a fixed BIOS if it is in
fact the case that it's doing the WrongThing.

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David Woodhouse, Robinson College, CB3 9AN, England.   (+44) 0976 658355
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